


Chair Jousting

by cablesscutie



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, friendship fic, light Percabeth angst, mostly just kids goofing off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1748231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cablesscutie/pseuds/cablesscutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a trip to pick up mortal supplies for the Argo II, Jason, Piper, Leo, and Annabeth stop by Annabeth's boarding school, only to walk in on one of the students' stranger traditions taking place.  Naturally, the chaos is too much for the demigods to resist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chair Jousting

          Jason, Piper and Leo had only been at camp for a couple of weeks before Annabeth had to leave. School break had been over for quite some time, and she already had a mountain of make up work waiting for her. Leo kept making lists of mortal supplies he wanted her to pick up. He claimed that they were for the Argo II, but what with it being a magic ship, and Leo’s enchanted tool belt and all, she was highly skeptical. Especially since he kept sneaking in items that were decidedly not building materials.  
          As Annabeth was packing up the last of her books and blueprints, Leo gave her the final list.  
          “Okay,” he told her, wiping his grease-smeared hand on his filthy jeans, but only managing to spread the black sludge around more. “This is it. I promise.” She rolled her eyes, but took the crumpled, smudged Post-it from his hand.  
          “You said that yesterday too and yet…” Annabeth pulled out a fistful of similar papers from her backpack.  
          “I’m serious! That’s the last one!” he insisted. She read over the items. 7 rolls of duct tape, box of nails, Mike &Ike’s, deck weather-proofer, paint rollers  
          “Leo, what possible use could Mike and Ike’s serve in building a boat?”  
          “Snackage is imperative! It’s like, the most important part!” he insisted.

          It was later decided that Leo, accompanied by Jason and Piper, would go into the city with Annabeth to do the errands “their own darn selves” and let her get back to her work. Of course, Annabeth eventually tagged along, after Piper insisted that she couldn’t leave her all alone with “those two doofuses”. Which brings us to how the three younger demigods ended up back at Annabeth’s dorm.

          Returning to drop off a load of supplies before heading out for the final run, the group was accosted by several kids who appeared to know Annabeth.  
          “Hey!” a tall, skinny girl with short, dark hair bounced up to them. “You made it! Are you competing?”  
          “In what?” Piper asked.  
          “Wait a minute, Annie didn’t even tell you what you were walking into?” Annabeth scowled at the nickname, but the girl just stuck her tongue out at her. The trio shook their heads. Jason looked at Annabeth expectantly. She frowned.  
          “Sorry guys. I forgot what day it was. They’re chair jousting.”  
          Jason looked confused, Piper looked amused, and Leo looked like he was about to explode from sheer anticipation of what he was sure had to be the most incredibly awesome sport ever invented. “You’ll see,” Annabeth and the dark-haired girl said, though Annabeth sounded more like she was apologizing. The other girl turned back to focus on Annabeth.  
          “So, you never answered! Are you competing?”  
          “No, Alex,” she sighed. “As always, I am not in the mood for a trip to the infirmary.”  
          “You jousted Percy that one time.”  
          “Yeah, one time,” Annabeth reminded her, letting out a frustrated sigh.  
          “But-”  
          “I gotta go. See ya’ later.”

          As they made their way over to an empty patch of wall in front of Annabeth’s dorm, they bumped into a pizza guy, who smiled when he saw Annabeth.  
          “Hey! You’re back from…Where was it you were going? Narnia?”  
          “Hi Derek,” she said tiredly.  
          “Seriously, would it kill ya’ to pick up a phone and say “Hey, I’m not coming back from Siberia until after break,”? I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere!”  
          “There’s no phones allowed at camp.” She looked over her shoulder at Piper, Leo, and Jason. “I order a lot of pizza.”

          Piper and Annabeth sat down and quickly became engrossed in a discussion involving some books that Piper had read, some books Annabeth had read, and a National Geographic special. Leo was bouncing all over the place, asking the ‘jousters’ about their costumes.  
          Jason looked around at the crowd assembled in the hall. One person was wearing a full-on knight costume. Helmet, shield, chainmail and all. Leo tapped Piper on the head, and pointed at another guy in a Darth Vader costume. Jason seemed confused as to what was so much more amusing about him than the others. Annabeth raised an eyebrow at him.  
          “Don’t you Romans have Star Wars?” she whispered. He frowned.  
          “Star what?” Piper and Leo’s heads whipped around to face him. All three studied him, as if they weren’t sure if he was joking or not, and were desperately hoping he was.  
          “Dude,” Leo said. “We are gonna have to do something about that!”  
Jason turned to ask Annabeth what they were all so freaked out about, but found that she’d wandered away. She was too busy talking to a guy that was dressed as Julius Caesar. Jason could tell it was him, because he had a knife hilt stuck to the back of his toga, with what appeared to be catsup smeared all around it. He was also eating a Caesar salad. Whether this was on purpose or just ironic, Jason wasn’t sure.  
          “You do realize that your helmet is wrong, right?” Annabeth was asking Julius. He cocked his head and stared up at her, confused.  
          “Huh?”  
          “It’s got a nose covering, which means it’s Greek, but Caesar was Roman.”  
          “Oh. Okay…” She picked up the offending object, whipped out her knife, which, out in the mortal world seemed to flicker between bronze dagger and plain old pocket knife, and cut off the small piece of plastic. With a satisfied smile, she handed it back to the boy, returning to her friends.  
           Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were standing in the middle of the crowd. They both had pillows strapped to their chests, lashed to them with belts tightened around their stomachs. One of them was Alex. She wore a pink Barbie bike helmet and matching elbow pads and wrist guards. The boy’s outfit was even stranger. He didn’t have real armor. Just a colander on his head. His blond hair stuck out of the holes at odd angles. There was a Superman-esque cape draped around his shoulders.  
          A piercing whistle cut through the air. Conversations grinded to a halt as everyone turned their attention to the Pizza guy. Derek stood between Alex and Superman. His voice echoed down the whole hallway as he shouted, “Listen up! I gotta get back to work, so I’m gonna make this short and sweet. Don’t make anybody bleed, and if you don’t wear padding, you’re a freaking idiot! Alex, Braxton, shake hands and take your places.” The two pillowed teens obeyed, turned, and started walking in opposite directions. Derek waved goodbye, calling over his shoulder, “Somebody e-mail me the video!”  
Once at their respective ends of the hall, Alex and Braxton picked up large cardboard tubes, like the ones Annabeth stored her blueprints in, and faced each other.  
          “PREPARE TO MEET YOUR MAKER!!!!” Braxton cried.  
          “I don’t subscribe to the theory of Creationism, and have therefore already met both my makers!” Alex’s voice called back. There was a smattering of laughter and a few calls of “Burn!” Then the audience began to count: “Three!...Two!…One!” and Alex and Braxton charged each other.  
About ten yards into their runs, they leapt, and landed, kneeling on the seats of rolling office chairs. Braxton held his tube under his arm, holding the back end with his hand so it wouldn’t go popping out. But Alex was smarter. She braced her weapon against the backrest of her chair, and when the two collided, Braxton’s chair flipped over, spilling   him onto the ground.  
          “This is more dangerous than chariot racing!” Leo exclaimed, jumping for joy. A couple of kids looked at him funny, but most were too absorbed in watching Alex. She was running victory laps around Braxton and his wrecked chair, swatting him with the tube between taunts.

          When the next joust began, (with Leo competing in a mish mash of other people’s borrowed gear) Alex flopped down next to Annabeth.  
          “So,” she began. “Where’s Percy tonight? Mr. Reigning Champ scared I’d shame him in front of his girlfriend?” Annabeth’s face fell, and for a fraction of a second, Alex could see just how tired her roommate really was.  
          “I wish I knew. And that Seaweed Brain has no shame.”  
          “What do you-”  
          “You know, I think my friends’ ride is probably here. I should go round them up.” And with that, she stood up and walked away, leaving the hallway of rowdy teenagers behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is much appreciated! If you have any thoughts you would like to share (any at all, seriously) just post a comment- I'd love to hear from you. Or, you can come join me on tumblr as fire-lord-mai!


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